盧浮宮正在發生的一場民主革命

The storybook rise of Jean-Luc Martinez begins where he grew up, in a Paris suburb dominated by blocky public housing. It ends deep within the opulent palace of the Louvre museum, where he is plotting what he calls a “petite révolution.”

巴黎——關於讓-盧克·馬丁內斯(Jean-Luc Martinez)步步高昇的故事，要從他在一個全是廉租房的巴黎郊區的成長時期開始講起，到盧浮宮博物館豪華宮殿的深處告終——目前他正在這裏策劃一場他所謂的“小型革命”。

Mr. Martinez, 50, son of a postman and the Louvre’s president since April 2013, is moving quickly to make a democratic mark on the royal stronghold that has the most visitors of any museum in the world, 70 percent of them foreign tourists.

50歲的馬丁內斯是一位郵遞員的兒子，2013年4月當上了盧浮宮館長，目前他正在迅速爲這座皇家重地打上民主化的印記；這裏是全世界吸引遊客人數最多的博物館，其中70%是外國遊客。

A two-year, 53.5 million euro makeover, or nearly $67 million, is underway in the vast reception area below I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid, where long lines of waiting visitors stream into a chaotic, open space that Mr. Martinez likens to a noisy airport and that leaves many people disoriented and lost.

在貝聿銘設計的玻璃金字塔下方的巨大接待區，參觀者們排着長隊等待進入一個亂糟糟的開闊空間，馬丁內斯說，這裏就像喧囂的飛機場，很多人都辨不清方向，快要迷路了。如今，爲時兩年，斥資5300萬歐元（或將近6700美元）的翻修就將在這裏進行。

He is also revamping the museum’s basic storytelling tools: almost 40,000 banners, wall text, signs and symbols that now explain its treasures in French. The plan is to make them more readable and concise, in English and Spanish for the vast majority of visitors searching for cloakrooms or the Mona Lisa in the sprawl of a museum that dates to 1190, when it was a fortress for King Philippe II.

他還將重修博物館的基礎解說工具：將近四萬個闡釋盧浮宮館藏的法語標題、牆壁說明、標牌和符號。他計劃增添英語和西班牙語解說，讓它們更加易讀和精確，這樣，在這座歷史可追溯到1190年，曾爲菲利普國王二世城堡的博物館裏，大量遊客就可以方便地找到廁所或《蒙娜·麗莎》了。

In the past, museums catered to visitors schooled in art history, with detailed information like a book and “chapters, titles, paragraphs,” Mr. Martinez said, striding in a dark suit and tie by a marble centaur and a wounded alabaster Galatian in a gallery where a 17th-century king once meted out commands. “Our museum is not a book. It’s something physical. It’s necessary to move things around to try to increase understanding of our art.”

過去，博物館都爲那些學習藝術史的參觀者們提供詳細的信息，就像一本書籍，有“章節、標題和段落”，馬丁內斯說道。他身穿深色西裝，打着領帶，走過一座長廊，這裏陳列着一尊大理石半人馬雕像和一座殘損的雪花石膏迦拉太人塑像，一位17世紀的國王曾在這裏發號施令。“我們的博物館不是一本書，而是具有實體的東西，有必要改變事物，幫助人們增進對藝術的理解。”

His strategy to “think of the visitor” also reflects a museum trend toward creating narratives that are more relevant to a changing demographic. As major museums strive to become more mainstream and less elitist, most of the Louvre’s nine million visitors tend to be newcomers and art novices and it is searching for ways to make their experiences more meaningful.

他的戰略是“爲參觀者着想”，這也反應了博物館界改變解說方式、適應人口構成變化的趨勢。目前大型博物館都在力求變得更加主流，去精英化，參觀盧浮宮的900萬名觀衆也大都是新來者和藝術初學者，博物館在尋找方式，讓他們的參觀體驗更有意義。

“For nearly everybody, museums are scary spaces,” said James M. Bradburne, director of the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, who has lectured widely on how museums can engage audiences more effectively. “It’s like going into the city for the first time. There aren’t signs at every point. It is very true that at the Louvre — and every museum — we underinform visitors.”

“對於幾乎所有人來說，博物館都是令人生畏的地方，”佛羅倫薩斯特羅齊宮的主管詹姆斯·M·布拉德伯尼(James M. Bradburne)說，他曾做過大量講座，講述博物館如何更有效率地吸引觀衆。“這就像初次來到一個城市，到處都沒有標誌牌一樣。確實，在盧浮宮——以及所有博物館——我們都沒有向參觀者提供足夠信息。”

The idea is to help newcomers to crack the code, with clear information to interpret a vast trove that includes the Venus de Milo, “Winged Victory of Samothrace” and the colossal statue of Ramesses II. Mr. Martinez is also reducing temporary exhibitions to make way for an educational space for Louvre artworks grouped around revolving themes such as mythology and the origins of civilization.

馬丁內斯的想法就是幫助新來者破解密碼，向他們提供清晰的信息，去闡釋博物館的衆多寶藏，諸如米洛島的維納斯、“有翅膀的薩摩絲雷斯勝利女神”和拉美西斯二世的巨大塑像。馬丁內斯還減少了臨時展覽，騰出地方創立一個教育空間，以神話學和文明起源等等爲主題，展示盧浮宮的藝術藏品。

Mr. Martinez, a descendant of Spanish immigrants who came five generations earlier from Almería, in southern Andalusia, grew up in Rosny-sous-Bois, a working-class suburb east of Paris. He said he reflects the demographic evolution. His own first visit to the Louvre was a history class trip at the age of 11. When he came home, he said, he told nothing to his parents, who had never taken him to a museum.

馬丁內斯是西班牙移民的後裔，五代以前的先祖從南安達盧西亞的阿爾梅里亞移居法國。他在巴黎東部的工薪階層郊區羅尼蘇布瓦長大，他說自己身上也反映了人口構成的變遷。他第一次訪問盧浮宮是在11歲那年學校歷史課組織的旅行中，但回到家裏，他卻沒有對父母說起這件事，父母從未帶他參觀過博物館。

“I lived in a suburb that was very modern, and everything was new,” he recalled. “And when I arrived here, everything was ancient. Imagine for a child, to see five centuries of art, some as old as two or three millenniums. In this space, I felt the depth of human history.”

“我住在一個非常現代的郊區，一切都是新的，”他回憶，“來到盧浮宮，一切又都那麼古老。試想一個孩子，一下子目睹了五個世紀的藝術，有些東西擁有兩三千年的歷史。在這裏，我感受到人類歷史的深度。”

To this day, his 82-year-old father has never visited the Louvre, where his son has worked since 1997 as a curator and the director of the museum’s Greek, Etruscan and Roman department before becoming president last year.

馬丁內斯的父親如今已經82歲，他從未參觀過盧浮宮。而馬丁內斯自1997年便在盧浮宮的希臘、伊特魯里亞與羅馬部擔任策展人和負責人，去年當上了館長。

It is a far different profile from his patrician predecessor, Henri Loyrette, a lawyer’s son who socialized with wealthy art patrons like the French luxury tycoon François Pinault and presided over the museum’s expansion to a satellite Louvre-Lens in northern France and the Abu Dhabi Louvre scheduled to open late next year.

這和他的前任昂利·盧瓦雷泰(Henri Loyrette)的貴族形象非常不同。盧瓦雷泰是律師的兒子，熱衷結交富有的藝術界贊助人，比如法國奢侈品大亨弗朗索瓦·皮諾(François Pinault)。他還主持了博物館的擴建，在法國北部興建了盧浮宮新館(Louvre-Lens)，阿布扎比盧浮宮也將在明年年底開放。